Featured Image Credit: Hulu
Topics: Book Recs, Entertainment, TV
Ilana Frost
Hulu has decided to torture Tell Me Lies stans by releasing only two episodes of season 2 at a time, and the suspense is gonna kill us. These people really thought they would just throw in the intense Lydia and Lucy conflict, the shocking Diana and Pippa relationship, and the disturbing Lydia’s brother and Pippa storyline, and then make us wait an entire week for the next episodes? It’s heartless behavior. I was so naive to think that season 1 of this show was as unhinged as TV gets… season 2 is chaos and toxicity on steroids so far.
Fortunately for those of us who are obsessive and need answers, this show is based on a novel of the same name by Carola Lovering. Here’s how the Tell Me Lies book ends!
*Book spoiler alerts ahead, duh.
Well, the book is very different because Macy is actually Lucy’s childhood best friend, not the roommate she barely gets to know. Macy still dies in a car accident, and it’s still Stephen who’s responsible for her death. There is no Lydia character in the novel, so sadly, there aren’t any answers yet about how Stephen and Lydia end up together in the show or what happened between Lydia and Lucy.
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In Carola’s novel, Stephen moves to New York City after he graduates from Baird, and he and Lucy continue their on-and-off toxic relationship for several years. Naturally, he cheats on her with another woman. In a Stephen POV chapter, we learn about the night of Macy’s death — Stephen was drunk driving and fled the scene, just like in the show. Eventually, Lucy figures out that Stephen is from her hometown and was involved in the death of her best friend. At Bree’s wedding, she confronts him about Macy, and he pretends to have no clue what she’s talking about. That’s when Lucy realizes she’s finally done with Stephen and has no feelings for him.
Lucy has a complex relationship with her mother in both the book and the show, but in the book, her mother does something truly horrific: She sleeps with Macy’s older brother and Lucy’s old crush, Gabe. At the end of the book, Lucy and her mom make up, and Lucy decides that she wants to get out of New York and pursue journalism.
Hulu hasn’t renewed the show for a third season yet. However, they announced season 2 a month after the season 1 finale aired, so I’m thinking we’ll get the news in October or November. Given the newfound popularity of Tell Me Lies and the long time period the writers can explore (2008 to 2015 and beyond), there’s definitely an opportunity to make several more seasons! I’m in favor of this! But TBD.